Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Handke, Peter (Vol. 135) - Eva-Maria Metcalf (essay date Autumn 1990)

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Eva-Maria Metcalf (essay date Autumn 1990)

SOURCE: “Challenging the Arrogance of Power with the Arrogance of Impotence: Peter Handke's Somnambulistic Energy,” in Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3, Autumn, 1990, pp. 369-79.

[In the following essay, Metcalf examines Handke's preoccupation with the aesthetic and contextual properties of language, particularly Handke's effort to purify language of its conventional meanings and associations in order to break free from “rationalistic discourse.” Metcalf writes, [Handke's] “impotent power is that of an alert dreamer, who reifies through illusion, who reveals by obscuring and enveiling words and concepts, and who gains in presence by withdrawing.”]

I

In 1967 Peter Handke built himself an ivory tower, and he has resided in it ever since. The theories about language and writing that he exposed in his essay “Ich bin ein Bewohner des Elfenbeinturms” have continued to...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Michael Hays (essay date January 1981)
   2. June Schlueter (essay date January 1981)
   3. Bruce Cook (review date 26 August 1984)
   4. D. J. Enright (review date 14 August 1986)
   5. Linda C. DeMeritt (essay date 1987)
   6. Michael Linstead (essay date 1987)
   7. Gail Pool (review date 8 July 1988)
   8. Paul Oldfield (review date 5 August 1988)
   9. Ursula Hegi (review date 16 July 1989)
   10. Mark Kamine (review date 2-16 October 1989)
   11. John Leonard (review date 4 December 1989)
   12. John Updike (review date 25 December 1989)
   13. Erich Wolfgang Skwara (review date Winter 1990)
   14. Erich Wolfgang Skwara (review date Summer 1990)
   15. Ursula Hegi (review date 1 July 1990)
   16. Hugo Caviola (essay date Autumn 1990)
   17. Eva-Maria Metcalf (essay date Autumn 1990)
   18. Michael Hofmann (review date 24 May 1991)
   19. J. J. White (review date 4 October 1991)
   20. Erich Wolfgang Skwara (review date Autumn 1992)
   21. Gitta Honegger (essay date 1993)
   22. Thomas H. Falk (review date Summer 1993)
   23. Erich Wolfgang Skwara (review date Autumn 1993)
   24. Richard Arthur Firda (essay date 1993)
   25. Times Literary Supplement (review date 16 September 1994)
   26. Gitta Honegger (review date 1995)
   27. Erich Wolfgang Skwara (review date Summer 1995)
   28. Edward Timms (review date 26 April 1996)
   29. Theodore Ziolkowski (review date Winter 1997)
   30. Tom Sellar (review date 1997)
   31. David Rieff (review date 12 January 1997)
   32. Theodore Ziolkowski (review date Summer 1997)
   33. Erich Wolfgang Skwara (review date Winter 1998)
   34. Thomas McGonigle (review date 20 September 1998)
   35. William H. Gass (review date 29 November 1998)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright